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Friday, January 25, 2013

From GregB: 28mm Mahdist cavalry (90 points)

From Greg:

This submission includes a group of Mahdist cavalry from Perry Miniatures awesome Sudan range. Among them is the combo armoured Emir and armoured standard bearer, together with six more regular cavalry dudes, three of them sporting capture Remington rifles (likely obtained from one of the hapless Egyptian columns the Mahdi's men had slaughtered earlier in their rebellion).

The Emir and his "flag dude" have rather amazing and bonkers patterns painted/quilted onto the cloth "armour" of their horses, while the riders themselves are clad in chain mail in addition to their more standard tribal garb. I do not believe the cloth covers any kind of barding for the horses, but in researching these figures I came across many photos of incredibly complicated and brightly coloured coverings for horses in Africa, traditions that survive to this day in many isolated parts of the continent.

I did my best to copy a particular pattern of a horse cloth that was captured at the battle of Omdurman. It is the same pattern the Perry Miniatures' page shows off - though painted much better. I went a little cross-eyed trying to figure it out, but it was worth the effort and I was pretty jazzed with the outcome. I have had these models in the pending pile for some time, so I am excited to get them done.

The flag is sourced from "The Virtual Armchair General". Not the best quality banners I have worked with, but the service from the fellow was top notch - no complaints there.

The Mahdist cavalry horde is now ready for a duel with the 10th Hussars! And I am praying this puts me back in front of Ray...the bugger...

Beautiful work Greg! That cloth horse barding is fabulous - I really like the colours you've used.

This group will give Greg a base of 80 points but I'm adding another 10 for the barding and the banner. Well done and great work but it still leaves you 1 pip shy of Ray... He's very wiley, that Mr. Rousell.